Today was the third day of the test at Barcelona; with just two more days of running before the new season starts and the testing ban kicks in the pressure is mounting for teams to find set-ups, incorporate new updates and get their cars sorted.

Track temperatures of over 30 were welcomed by Pirelli and the teams today. Meanwhile rain forecast for Saturday will not help the teams much, although it will be useful to Pirelli in learning more about the intermediate and wet tyres.

Photo: Sauber

Sergio Perez set a very quick time of 1m 21.761 on a qualifying simulation, the fastest time we have seen so far in Barcelona this winter, a shade quicker than Sebastian Vettel’s 1m 21.865 yesterday on a five lap run. Although we do not know exactly how much fuel each car was carrying, if neither had fuel as ballast this puts the Sauber around 3/10ths slower than the Red Bull, albeit using the super soft tyre, which is probably less than the real number, but we’re into the fine details here. It shows how some of the midfield teams have improved over the winter. We should see some more proof of that on the stopwatch in the next two days.

“This was the first time for Sergio to go through all those procedures from Q1 to Q3,” said Sauber technical director James Key. “He did a good and controlled set of laps, setting a time of 1:22.042 minutes on soft tyres and 1:21.761 on the super soft compound.”

Perez was also quick on the soft tyre, only a couple of tenths slower. Ironically Perez had set a lap on Tuesday in the 1m21s, but it was achieved by cutting the chicane and so was deleted by official timing! Today there was no mistake and it’s a quick time, even if it was a full low fuel qualifying simulation.

Today saw Ferrari again notching up a high mileage, 132 laps in total; Massa had done 100 laps by 3pm. So far this winter almost every day of testing has resulted in over 100 laps, with very few exceptions. He set the second fastest time of the day with a 1m 22.092 on a quali run, but it’s doubtful that the fuel load was comparable, judging from the relative pace we’ve seen from the Sauber and Ferrari in the tests to date.

The Ferrari long run times again look comparable with the Red Bull’s. It was Massa’s last day of testing before the season starts.

For Mercedes, Michael Schumacher’s time of 1m22.892 was set while he was doing a series of short runs, but he did a couple of ten lap runs with very consistent lap times, in the 1m26s and 1m27s, which will have encouraged Mercedes’ engineers. The teams are working hard to make the tyres last a little longer each time they test. Reports suggest that two stops would still be tricky at Barcelona – Massa did four today in a race simulation – but by the time F1 goes back there in a couple of months it might be possible.

Vitaly Petrov was again at the wheel of the Renault. He had a KERS problem in the morning. A similar problem spoiled the race distance run of Perez in the Sauber. It’s interesting that there have been quite a few reliability niggles with KERS for teams this week, as they get more use.

Meanwhile Toro Rosso claim to have carried out over 60 live pit stops in the last two days!

For Lotus, Jarno Trulli drove just six laps in the morning, with a gearbox problem and then a water leak Heikki Kovalainen taking over in the afternoon and he will drive again tomorrow. Lotus hasn’t got a great deal of updates to test this week, there is a new front wing for tomorrow.

McLaren did not run today. They chose to split their four days across the five of the test by taking a day off track in the middle. Yesterday the car was troubled by hydraulic and exhaust issues.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh told the official F1 site, F1.com today that, despite (and perhaps also because of) the reliability issues, the decision to start testing the new car late has proved the right one as the tyre data gathered on the old car was beneficial,
“That first test proved extremely beneficial in providing us with rich, raw tyre data that we’ve been analyzing ever since,” he said. “So, while I admit that the introduction of the MP4-26 has been affected by a few reliability issues, we still stand by our decision to defer its introduction by one test.”

McLaren scheduled the day off in order to allow delivery time for the final update kit to be tested Friday and Saturday. Every hour on track counts for McLaren at the moment.

Meanwhile Felipe Massa has spoken about the meeting the FIA’s Charlie Whiting last night, “We spoke about the tyres and other new rules for this year, such as the moveable rear wing,” he said on Ferrari.com. “More or less all of us drivers are agreed that there is a need to improve the rain tyres so that they give more grip: if we were to have another race like the one last year in Korea, it would be tough to get to the finish.”

They also spoke about the use of the adjustable rear wing, with some drivers concerned at indiscriminate use in corners during practice and qualifying potentially leading to accidents.

So James, is your bottom-line analysis at the moment, like this: RBR is 2-3 tenths faster in quali trim than the Ferrari, then the two are about equal in race trim, and it will come down to Q-position and especially tire management and strategy as to which car will win more races. Is that pretty much how you see it at the moment ?

I understand McLarens reasoning behind missing testing today, but with the rain expected on Sat. are they really missing out on a day to test. Today was the highest temp. so far right, any way Im excited to see the final update.

I think McLaren repeatedly saying their decision to test the old car at the first test is simply trying to save face at this point.

Fact is, the team have problems with the car and an extra test would have given them more time to deal with them and get some mileage. Yes, they may have a good understanding of the tires themselves but their knowledge of the combination of the tires working with their 2011 car is far less than Red Bull and Ferrari.

The only "fact" is that this is all just testing and NO ONE really knows which car is quickest over a race distance (remember the winner of a Grand Prix is the first car to cross the line after the disignated race distance - I don't remember there ever being a 1-lap GP).

Mr Allen,top marks for the input you contributed to the current stagewho is who of F1 carnival,keep it up as the reast of the sites are just ordinary.I feel the Ferrari are benchmark for others to match,todays 132 laps by Massa and almost at the top of time sheets without hic'cup and Alonso yet to come who I consinder a numero uno in today F1.Please your thoughts is my bow just about right or ?.

I don't think mclaren will be behind torro rosso or Williams but they might be behind sauber, last week I done a pecking order with sauber ahead of these guys but hardly anyone agreed but it looks like they're showing their teeth now! Mercedes will be fighting with Williams, torro rosso, and force India.

Norbert Haug's comment today is very intriguing. He says the Mercedes has been running with half a tank of fuel during this final test. That would make the lap times in the 25s & 26s very impressive. They might even be comparable with the Red Bull & Ferrari, assuming they are running similar fuel loads. But, was he telling the truth? Time will tell.

Pirelli told that they brought only hard and soft tyres to Barcelona as they will be the tyres to be used in the next three races, but James Key said Perez made his lap times on super soft. How could that be, James?

As the testing season approaching it's climax, it is fair to say that red Bull is the quickest and they will again take most of pole positions. Ferrari is a close second - maybe 0.3 off the pace and maybe equal in the race trip. Both teams enjoyed great reliability. Red Bulls look very confident...Ferrari understand that they are behind and will need to simply perform better to be able to win.

Ferrari seem quite content with themselves, but then they always are ;-).

I hope they will fing some way to close that gap to RBR in qualifying or that Red Bull will not be that reliable. Not that I wish anybody bad luck and want one team to break down more often than the rest, but (preferences aside) I simply don't want one team to be way in front of the rest. That would mean a boring season...

I think your last line sums it up - Ferrari want to race smarter and better than RBR, they think they are better operationally. The two cars look a step ahead of the rest so it's Alonso/Massa vs Vettel/Webber at the start of the season

Ehhhh Vettel can't overtake!!!! He is no where near the complete package. If Schumacher was in that red bull he would have won the title. Despite being a Hamilton fan, Alonso has Vettel every day of the week

I'm not yet convinced Vettel is as good an all round driver as either Alonso or Schumacher. He is fast, possibly faster, but he has yet to prove he has the full package. I'm not dismissing Vettel - Schumacher at that age wasn't the all-round driver he became.

They can run high fuel, but they will still need data on how the car and tyres perform with low fuel so would have to show their hand at some point. If they did not they would be not collecting valuable data just to try and hide their pace, you can do calculations to see what your lap times would roughly be on low fuel from high fuel runs but that car and tyres will behave differently with less fuel in the car so at some point you have to acutally run with low fuel.

Just outside Wantage...they are in the improved midfield pack, very hard to tell where exactly. I still think that there will be quite a spread in midfield with the weaker drivers in stronger cars beaten by the stronger drivers in weaker cars.

"McLaren scheduled the day off in order to allow delivery time for the final update kit to be tested Friday and Saturday."

Autosport Said:

"Lots of you are asking via live@autosport.com if McLaren is sitting out today's test because it has a massive upgrade arriving for tomorrow.

Sorry to disappoint McLaren fans, but we don't believe this is the case. Our understanding is that the team just decided this would give the test a better flow - a clear day's break to work through problems and fit whatever updates are available (we don't expect a major new package). It gives the team some breathing space - which is better when things aren't going well."

Whitmarsh said:

"Late delivery of new components is always critical in the run-up to the first race, and we felt that Tuesday-Wednesday-Friday-Saturday was the optimal way to ensure we could stretch that window as much as we could."

So I guess the next 2 days will show McLaren's true hand... I can only hope that they have an F-Duct 2.0 to stick on the car 🙂

That's the automatic royal-wave function that's been added to the F150th Italia (or whatever it's called these days!?!) 😉 Or it's the way Ferrari activate their rear wing flap? Or, seeing as Massa did soooo many laps, perhaps it's an extra bottle and he's reaching for some refreshment?

Actually, it looks as though the sensor has fallen over (it's normally vertical) and Massa, with his recent experience of foreign objects entering the cockpit, is wisely holding it up\away from him...

As much as a pessimistic Mercedes/Schumacher fan, when Ross Brawn says "the car will be respectable" you better watch out because he said the same thing before the start of 2009, no one took him seriously and we all know what happened.

James a thought occurs to me; are we not looking at the times through pre Pirelli glasses?

Should we not be looking at the average lap time a car can get through the life of set of tyre? is it possible that a single lap time is misleading and what we are should be looking for how long a car can get performance from a set of tyres in comparison to the competition?

If for example through design, set up and driving style, a team do not have nearly the fastest car over a single lap, but after say 10 laps their car is suddenly 1sec a lap faster than the others, this may prove to be over all a vastly superior approach and in fact the key. I am wondering if the very high fall off tyres may have opened up some unforeseen twists as to how to go F1 racing in 2011.

I think we still need to look at both - there are two competitions; being fastest over a lap in quali and then making the tyres during the race. You can now afford to give a bit up in quali to have better race pace, as you say, like in the 1980s.

I dont think quali will be as important this season although of course its almost always best to start on pole. Remember we have the "stalling the rear wing" device this year and kers which will prevent any "Trulli Trains" forming 🙂

i think that this season the actual pace of the cars is going to be less important than before in terms of deciding race results, compared with strategy choices. On different tyre compounds theres such a huge difference in speed, and with having to make so many pitstops it could be that strategy is far more important? Hopefully could be a glimmer of hope for McLaren and Mercedes